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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200273">Me and my reality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/makesometime/pseuds/makesometime'>makesometime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Backstory, Childhood Memories, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, The Dark Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:22:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,245</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/makesometime/pseuds/makesometime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Manuela has always needed to <em>know</em>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Dark &amp; Manuela Dominguez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Me and my reality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/gifts">skvadern</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Manuela has always needed to <em>know</em>.</p><p>A weakness, maybe. Her parents would certainly claim so, though she suspects that’s in large part due to the focus of her knowledge seeking, and not the fact that it exists in the first place.</p><p>But it’s <em>her </em>weakness.</p><p>As a child she was determined to make it a strength. To test the boundaries of her existence and find their limits.</p><p>It was both chilling and affirming when they started to push back.</p><p>She remembers a time, playing Sardines as a bored child after a long Sunday school session in a cold, draughty church hall. Hiding herself crouched half under the piano and holding a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles as feet upon feet rushed to and fro in front of her vision.</p><p>The darkness of the room had felt comforting at first, but it soon became oppressive, a slow creeping presence as the laughter of her companions faded and fewer pairs of legs passed her hiding space. The air became… thick? As if the darkness was embracing her, some of the light from the dirty windows starting to dim like someone was going around closing all the curtains.</p><p>Then…</p><p>A presence.</p><p>A hand?</p><p>Around her ankle.</p><p>No… her wrist?</p><p>She had screamed when it covered her eyes, but she was all too aware that she made no sound.</p><p>It was her mother worriedly calling her name that brought her out of it, she knows, the blanket of Darkness retreating quicker than it arrived.</p><p>It had taken her a very long time to realise that she was disappointed that it had.</p><p>As she ages, Manuela investigates how she might bring a return of the Darkness in a hundred different ways, though she never quite succeeds in recreating that day.</p><p>Her studies help, though they never quite fit her, uncomfortable like a pair of shoes with a hole in the sole. At the very least, they serve to bring her some of the way to understanding her place in the universe.</p><p>Her place as a servant to the Dark.</p><p>Manuela dreams one night of being back in that old church hall, an adult in her childlike remembrance of its spaces. Though it’s been long since repurposed into a boujie renovation project for some unfulfilled ex-London bankers, it <em>feels</em> the same. The shadows are the same, stark and angular against the limewashed walls, prickled all over with salts from rising damp.</p><p>She runs her hands over them, gathering the crystals on her fingers, hoping that the shadows will tug at her in the same way they had so many years ago.</p><p>But nothing. She is denied.</p><p>She stands in the middle of the room, watching the arching lines of black and <em>begs</em> for them to remember her.</p><p>The Dark doesn’t respond to her pleas, doesn’t even go as far as to acknowledge her presence.</p><p>She is on the outside. She <em>aches</em> with it.</p><p>Recognising her angry wants for what they are drives Manuela to lead her own experiments, outside of the university lab.</p><p>It’ll take confidence, she knows. Assurance. She must show herself worthy.</p><p>Manuela takes the back route home after a long day in the lab, down the small alleyway with the streetlight that’s not worked for the entire time she’s been renting in the little village. The few friends she has use their phones for comfort, for reassurance, but Manuela doesn’t need anything of the sort. The rumours of the hammer-wielding rapist that haunts these parts don’t bother her.</p><p>She knows she’s safe in the Dark.</p><p>Tonight, Manuela makes the choice to stop beneath the lamp that should be alight with a sodium glow.</p><p>Closes her eyes.</p><p>And breathes.</p><p>She feels the light still pushing in at her even now that the sun is beneath the horizon, its bastardised illumination coming from the sliver of moonlight trying to encroach and ruin her communion.</p><p>She smiles when it fails, blocked out by the cold embrace of true Darkness.</p><p>She reaches out for the Dark and finally, blessedly, the Dark reaches back.</p><p>In that moment she is as the matter she craves so deeply to master in those early days of study. Unobserved, unremarked upon save for the impact she has on the world around her. It is a feeling that doesn’t leave her in the days that follow. She’s not even sure her course leader remembers what her face looks like the moment she steps out of his office.</p><p>Meeting Maxwell Rayner brings all of her uncertainty over her studies into focus.</p><p>Still, it is hard to break with that desire, that bracing desperation for knowledge. She knows she’ll need to have qualifications for what’s next. So she pushes on, even in the moments when she <em>feels</em> the shadows catch at her footsteps.</p><p>All she needs to do is focus.</p><p>On her studies.</p><p>On Maxwell.</p><p>On the church.</p><p>Perhaps it’s apt that It’s the church that brings her to her knees.</p><p>She’s not sure what it is. A moment of weakness, a lapse of faith.</p><p>(She wonders. Did he find her, or did she find him? Did the Dark intercede? Who holds the power? Is it her? Should it be?)</p><p>(What if this congregation isn’t any better than the faith of her parents that was so toxic, so <em>wrong</em>?)</p><p>She misses a sermon one night in favour of finishing an experiment, feeling herself on the cusp of a breakthrough that never comes. Disappointed, Manuela walks home and finds herself in front of her house without even realising she took the steps</p><p>There is no light in any of the windows.</p><p>It should be welcoming, shouldn’t it?</p><p>It is not.</p><p>Manuela walks into the house, knowing in her gut that her housemates are not there, but calling for them anyway. Every room is dark. She can barely see an inch in front of her nose. She walks the familiar path from the front door to the stairs and climbs them.</p><p>And climbs.</p><p>And climbs.</p><p>And climbs.</p><p>She doesn’t know how long she’s moving for. Her legs are sore, her calves cramping, but she cannot stop. She can feel nothing around her.</p><p>Nothing ahead.</p><p>Nothing behind.</p><p>But she cannot stop.</p><p>It shouldn’t be possible. Logically, she knows there is nowhere on Earth that will allow for this complete impossibility of physical laws.</p><p>But she cannot.</p><p>Stop.</p><p>When the Darkness finally lifts, she welcomes the sight of the sun. Admitting it hurts her. Embarrasses her. It's never been this way before, but she had no <em>choice </em>no <em>say</em> in her imprisonment and she <em>needs</em> this to be on her terms.</p><p>She checks her phone. Three days have passed.</p><p>She has no messages.</p><p>No one missed her.</p><p>It's fine.</p><p>She returns to the church the next day. Maxwell smiles when he senses her there, in a way that screams that he knows, he has to know, he must know. She feels ashamed all over again.</p><p>Only then, when she’s been chastened, does Maxwell give her purpose. Reason. Her time wasn’t wasted, her knowledge will bring about real change. She will take her work with the light and use it to bring about its end.</p><p>That night, she returns home long after everyone else has gone to bed.</p><p>The house is dark when she pushes the door open, and she walks into its embrace with an open heart.</p><p>She belongs in the Dark.</p><p>She will show the world they belong there too.</p>
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